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Build a Data Center

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Contributors

2 large organizations (Insurance & Government) contributed information that assisted with the development of this solution set; and requested confidentiality. Other useful data was collected from over 300 survey respondents.

Your Challenge

42% of IT leaders have been tasked with completing a data center build-out in 2010. Often, the organization lacks previous experience building a data center.

Each data center project is unique and should have its own detailed budget. Planning upfront and establishing a clear project scope will minimize expensive changes in later project stages.

This solution set will provide you with step-by-step design, planning and selection tools in order to define a facility design that minimizes costs and risk while supporting cost-effective long-term growth.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Info-Tech sees organizations using designers grounded in commercial office space disciplines, which inevitably results in problems at later stages of the project with final inspections and expensive change orders.

5. Select a General Contractor

The skills required to execute a data center facility build-out are rarely found in-house. A competent General Contractor with deep experience building similar facilities (of size and scope) is required. Selecting the contractor with the skills, approach, and right cost is tricky. Ensure the vendor matches the requirements and form a solid base for the long and expensive project ahead.

7. Define the power, cooling and standby power requirements

The data center’s power and cooling capacity must adequately support the organization’s current infrastructure as well as meet future needs and requirements. To determine long-term need, IT must have a method to properly calculate and forecast data center power, cooling and, standby power requirements. IT departments that use a best-guess method are likely to run into trouble, and will incur unnecessary costs when adding new capacity for equipment in the future. By investing time finding the right information and performing the calculations involved in estimating facility requirements, IT will ensure that the data center has the right amount of power at the right cost to support both current and future needs.

8. Define the physical layout requirements

Before data center building or refresh plans can be finalized, IT must pay careful attention to the layout and design of building space. Along with the room that houses servers and data center equipment, space must also be allocated to rooms which relate to the support of data center functions and activity. The emphasis for space allocation decisions should be based on the workflow of the data center to try to achieve a balance between cost and flexible space for future business growth and changes.

9. Define fire protection requirements

Fire protection is a critical and obligatory part of data center design and planning. Because a fire can happen at any time, IT must be prepared to protect the data center with the necessary equipment for the following reasons:

Life safety. The primary concern when assessing data center fire protection requirements is to protect the lives of data center and surrounding personnel.

Protection of property. Servers and other equipment located in the data center are extremely expensive to replace. A fire protection plan should safeguard all equipment from excessive loss or damage.

Continuity of operations. The cost of downtime in critical business activities can cost the company thousands of dollars and interrupt employee productivity.

Codes and standards. IT managers must comply with the state, local, federal, and National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) codes and standards. However, it is ultimately the Authority Having Jurisdiction that will dictate the majority of fire protection requirements.

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